Limassol Archaeological Museum

The Archaeological Museum in Limassol was founded in 1948 and was initially housed in a part of the Limassol Castle. During the conflicts of 1964 it remained close as it was transferred to the National Guard. Construction activities both for the new modern Museum and the Court House began in 1972. The new exhibition was rearranged in March 1975 , under extremely difficult circumstances related to the recent Turkish invasion of the island. The Castle itself was restored and its prison cells (dating to a reconstruction phase during the Ottoman period) were adapted to house the new Cypriot Medieval Museum. The Castle exhibition consists of artefacts of the latest periods of Cypriot History, beginning from the 4th and 5th centuries AD and covering all the historical periods to the early phases of the Ottoman period, 16th-17th cent. The Archaeological Museum is housing antiquities that have been found during systematic and rescue excavations of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus and of the foreign Archaeological Missions in the City and the District of Limassol as well. Through the exhibited material the visitors can follow the development of civilisation in the island from the 9th millennium to the end of antiquity (Late Roman period).